These days when you put “budget” and “laptop” in the same sentence, you think of small-screen netbooks. But many shoppers are looking for full-size systems that don’t cost a pretty penny. Today’s budget notebooks offer more power than those ultra-popular minis, along with plenty of style and functionality.

While you shouldn’t expect the world of the systems in this roundup, all of the portables we recruited have dual-core processors, a minimum of 3GB of RAM, and at least 250GB of storage space. Their guts are more than sufficient to handle Vista (and pretty soon, Windows 7), whether you’re crunching numbers, editing photos, surfing the Web, watching movies, or word processing. Don’t expect to play the latest 3D games, though; these laptops all have integrated graphics.

Aside from decent internal specs, most of today’s budget notebooks no longer look like they came from the bargain bin. Little flourishes such as touch-sensitive buttons, patterned lids, and chrome accents are making their way down from the premium lines.

So what about netbooks? Considering that they cost about $200 less than budget notebooks, it’s important to make the distinction between the two categories. Netbooks have smaller 10- to 12-inch displays, are easier to carry, and offer 6 or more hours of battery life, but they’re also underpowered. These budget notebooks offer 14- to 15.6-inch screens and more computing muscle, and therefore can be considered a primary PC.

Yes, when you spend less than $600 for a notebook, you’ll have to make a few tradeoffs. But now more than ever, those compromises are less significant to the majority of consumers. Instead of bemoaning your notebook’s lack of frills, you’ll be congratulating yourself on a shrewd purchase.